1. Field
The present disclosure relates to microfluidic apparatuses for isolating target cells in a biological sample and methods of enriching a target material by using the microfluidic apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Death of a patient caused by a malignant tumor is typically due to metastasis of the tumor from a site where the tumor originally occurred to other tissues or organs. Accordingly, in order to increase the chances of survival, it is very important to discover tumor metastasis early. In general, cancer is diagnosed by histopathology. Histopathology is a diagnosis method wherein a tissue sample obtained from a biopsy specimen is used to directly identify tumor cells. However, a biopsy specimen only provides information about the tissue contained in the biopsy specimen, such that a biopsy specimen may not generally be used to identify tumor metastasis. Accordingly, the use of histopathology in diagnosing or monitoring tumors, especially metastasized tumors, has many limitations.
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) can be identified in patients before a tumor is originally detected, and CTCs may play an important factor in early diagnosing cancer. In addition, since cancer may spreads through blood, CTCs may be a marker for identifying cancer metastasis. In addition, when CTCs can be detected after a tumor is removed by a surgical operation, the possibility of recurrence of cancer is very high. However, since the amount of CTCs in blood may be very small and since CTCs are very fragile, it is difficult to correctly quantify CTCs. Accordingly, there is a need to develop a diagnosis method with high sensitivity in detecting CTCs, cancer cells, or cancer stem cells present in the body of patients.